


Companionship

by Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 04:59:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2838899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw/pseuds/Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Rusty met Oswin, or, a few good Daleks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Companionship

Rusty (the moniker had proved permanent, as there was no previous appellation to compete with it) contemplates the void as he sails along. (The use of metaphorical speech is new, and strangely freeing.) 'Vast' and 'infinite' cross his mind, and he thinks, not for the last time, that this infinity of possibility is a source of hope, of endless litters of new stars, new worlds. 

An alarm interrupts his meditation, and he twists a knob with his sucker-arm. Some approaching sign of life, he realizes, looking at the scanner, and adjusts course. It had not been a very large stretch of imagination to get from “destroy all Daleks” to “protect non-Daleks,” and Rusty thought that even such a hateful being as the Doctor would approve. Another light flashes; he is being hailed.

“Hello?” a young woman's voice asks. “Is there anyone there?”

“Yes,” Rusty croaks, and the comm line falls silent. Ah, yes, he recalls, his current voice tends to induce blank terror in most forms of space-faring life, and he has been unable to alter it by himself. “Do not succumb to your panic,” he counsels. “I am a good Dalek.” Nothing. “My name is Rusty.”

That, finally, triggers a spark of laughter. “Oswin Oswald, late of the Dalek Asylum, later still of the starship Alaska. I guess you could say I'm a good Dalek, too. And it doesn't sound like I have much choice; I think I've been damaged.”

Rusty's sucker-arm hovers over his weapons controls as the visual scan confirms that what he had thought was merely an escape pod is in fact, a Dalek, careening through the void. It does not twitch, or rub nervously against itself, but it does hesitate. You were found in much the same circumstances, he reminds himself. “Maintain course,” he tells her needlessly, as she is obviously drifting. “I have plenty of spare parts,” he informs her mirthlessly. Was that meant to be humorous, he wonders?

“Brilliant,” she tells him, and he senses that she is keeping much to herself. He would shrug if he had shoulders: if she is a good Dalek, she will join him in his mission. Some of the Doctor's memories waft up into his consciousness: the Doctor requires companions.


End file.
